The Island (2005 film)

The Island (2005) is a science fiction film released by DreamWorks SKG on July 22, 2005. Directed by Michael Bay, it stars Ewan McGregor and Scarlett Johansson. The screenplay was written by Caspian Tredwell-Owen, Alex Kurtzman and Roberto Orci.

Plot summary

The film's plot is set in the year 2019 and it centres around a futuristic colony of people, apparently rescued from the overpolluted outside world. In this utopian haven, everything is chosen for them — what they wear, eat, play, drink, do and everything else. After a seemingly random amount of time, supposedly decided by a lottery, they are told they are being moved to "The Island", supposedly a wondrous, utopian paradise.

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When Lincoln Six-Echo (Ewan McGregor) awakes on this fateful day, a strip along the wall greets him good morning and when he urinates, it tells him that he has high sodium levels and unfortunately won't be allowed any of his precious bacon for his breakfast. The woman at the head of the breakfast dispenser gives Lincoln some disgusting gloop, but Jordan Two-Delta (Scarlett Johansson) — Lincoln's best friend — charms the woman into giving her some bacon and giving to Lincoln, saying that he'll need it for his match tonight against her.

Related Topics:
Echo - Ewan McGregor - Scarlett Johansson

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They see a grinning and gloating Starkweather (Michael Clarke Duncan), a tall and muscular African-American, saying that he's glad to go to the Island.

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We also see women and men swimming in a pool wearing Speedos and Lincoln is sent to the Tranquility Center, where Dr. Merrick (Sean Bean) asks Lincoln about his proximity warnings with Jordan and his dream. It's of Lincoln with an almost angel-like Jordan on a boat (actually a Wallypower 118) called Renovatio sailing through turquoise blue waters to the Island. Then Lincoln is thrown overboard and drowns. Lincoln easily and artistically sketches the boat.

Related Topics:
Sean Bean - Wallypower 118

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He is therefore late for work and then a pregnant resident, Lima One-Alpha (Siobhan Flynn), begins labor, which they believe means automatic entry to the island.

Related Topics:
Alpha - Siobhan Flynn

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Later, he and Jordan do a virtual-reality and motion sensor martial-arts match using a massive XBox, and Jordan defeats Lincoln. He later drowns his sorrows in a bottle of Aquafin and Jordan comforts him.

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Lincoln Six Echo-happens upon evidence of the real outside world, a flying insect, which shouldn't have been there if the outside world were really contaminated. So he becomes curious and climbs a ladder that was out of bounds to the residents.

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He arrived on an upper floor, which was the inner workings of the facility, and he discovers the truth. He found two people who supposedly went to the island recently. Lima One-Alpha gave birth, and the staff promised that she would soon hold the baby and then be off to the island. But then they murdered her by lethal injection, and the young midwife (Svetlana Efremova) merely looks coldly as she restrains her feet during the brief convulsion. It turns out that the baby is for the benefit of an identical looking woman and her husband (whom Lincoln didn't see). Starkweather woke up during surgery to extract his organs, and he fled in panic. The staff caught him with harpoon guns and reeled him in, as he was begging to be allowed to live.

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When Jordan Two-Delta is called to be moved to The Island, Lincoln makes a desperate attempt to escape to the outer world, taking Jordan with him. It was just in time, because he was caught on video witnessing the horrors and Merrick recognized him, so they were also hunting him.

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In the outside world, Lincoln, with Jordan, had trouble with the slang of those in the outside world. But they found the one staff member, McCord (Steve Buscemi), who was friendly to him. McCord revealed both of them and everyone else in the colony, save for the staff and Merrick, is a clone. Jordan replies that she remembers her mother, but then McCord tells her exactly what she remembers, and explains that the memories were implanted (he was involved in that).

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They see someone they think they recognize on TV, and McCord informs them that it is the President.

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When the clones are supposedly being moved to "The Island", they are really being killed, and their organs harvested for transplant to their "sponsor", or original person, whose need for the organs corresponds to who will "win the lottery". The sponsor (and the general public) is unaware of the true origin of their replacement organs. Jordan's sponsor was an actress, Sarah Jordan, who has a young son, and is in a coma, so urgently needs a complete organ transplant.

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McCord reveals that Merrick has broken so many laws to build his facility. For one thing, he tells the outside world that the clones, or agnates, are in a presistent vegetative state, because reproductive cloning was banned. But he found that to harvest viable organs, the clones needed life experience. But he arranged so that they would not be educated past a typical 15 year old.

Related Topics:
Presistent vegetative state - Reproductive cloning

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McCord gives Lincoln and Jordan clothes, money and a credit card to help them find their original sponsors and reveal the truth. To help them, McCord has revealed that Lincoln's sponsor lives in Los Angeles.

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The owner of the facility sends a mercenary strike team to find the fugitives, led by Albert Laurent (played by Djimon Hounsou). At the train station to Los Angeles, the strike team kill McCord and give chase to Lincoln and Jordan by helicopter and car. They end up escaping the L.A.P.D and the team led by Laurent on a futuristic jet-bike, narrowly escaping.

Related Topics:
Mercenary - Djimon Hounsou

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Jordan tries to phone her sponsor, and the phones have a video link, so she sees that it's answered by a young boy with a striking resemblance to her. The boy says that Sarah Jordan, his mom, is very sick. Then he sees Jordan Two-Delta and says, "Mommy, is that you?"

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Lincoln finds his sponsor, playboy racer Tom Lincoln in an expensive and luxurious apartment. It is there, Lincoln spots Renovatio, the ship he saw in his dream. Tom informs him that it means 'Rebirth' in Latin. Jordan whispered that he saw the same look of deceit in Tom's eyes that she always picked in Six-Echo's eyes when he was lying. It turns out that she was right. The sponsor betrays the clone (it was revealed that Tom Lincoln was suffering from liver failure due to his playboy lifestyle and he had three years left to live), but the team shoots the Tom Lincoln by mistake when faced with two identical people as well as Lincoln Six-Echo putting his identification braclet onto Tom Lincoln's wrist which lead to Laurent and his team shooting Tom Lincon instead of Lincoln Six-Echo. Lincoln Six-Echo then pretends he is Tom Lincoln to escape from Laurent and his team. Lincoln Six-Echo (who was pretending to be Tom Lincoln) was urged to secrecy by Laurent in which Lincoln remarks (in his impersonation of Tom Lincoln's Scottish accent), "I want to live, and I don't care how."

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When Lincoln Six-Echo returns to Tom Lincoln's apartment, Jordan makes sure that he is Six-Echo and not Tom, then kisses him. Natural instinct takes over and they make love in Tom Lincoln's home.

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Dr. Merrick decides that some of the agnates are too curious by far, especially as Lincoln Six Echo retained memories of his sponsor. So he decides to exterminate the 'curious' generations which are Echo, Foxtrot and Gamma generations. This includes one of Lincoln's friends, Jones Three-Echo (Ethan Phillips), who is an obsessive about going to the Island.

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Lincoln and Jordan infiltrate the cloning complex, after debating about whether to head south and escape their captors, living off Tom Lincoln's identity and fortune.

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Lincoln goes in as Tom Lincoln, ostensibly to have a replacement agnate made again of himself, but then he heads to the Holographic Room, where he fights with Dr. Merrick. Jordan cunningly gave ice creams to children back in Los Angeles and paid with the credit card, so that she would be caught by the mercenary team and brought back to be dissected. Somehow they didn't search her first and discover that she was carrying one of Tom Lincoln's two pistols (the other pistol, a Russian-made Makarov PM pistol, was in Lincoln Six-Echo's possession in which he used in his first attempt to shut down the controls in the Holographic Projector Control Room by trying to shoot the glass doors to the control room). So she escapes from the operating table, shooting one of the staff who had gloated to her about what they were going to remove.

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Laurent, who is African, has a twinge of conscience about dehumanising those who are clearly human, because he and his family were victims of a genocide in Africa (possibly Rwanda) and was branded on the palm of his hand by the people who killed some of the members of his family to tell others that he and his family were less than human. This twinge of conscience was brought about after Laurent saw Jordan's agnate registration and identification code branded on her wrist when Laurent and his team were bringing Jordan back to the institute after capturing her in Los Angeles. The sight of Jordan Two-Delta's agnate registration and identification code branded on her wrist brought back many bad memories for Laurent when he was a child and had his hand branded by the people who saw him as less than human in their eyes.

Related Topics:
Genocide - Rwanda

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After arriving at the institute and delivering Jordan to the doctors so they can dissect her, Laurent told Dr. Merrick of what happened to him and his family when he was a child in Africa and promptly showed the brandmark on the palm of his hand to Dr. Merrick to drive his point home. He was also disgusted to learn from Dr. Merrick that Jordan Two-Delta would be killed although it would most likely have no hope in saving Sarah Jordan's life (the delay had been too long), which he regarded as completely unnecessary killing. As a result, Laurent aids Jordan in rescuing a group of clones from being killed in a massive incinerator.

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Lincoln destroys the holographic projectors surrounding the facility, kills Dr. Merrick, and cause gigantic fans to collapse, thus destroying the facility. Then the clones walk out into the real world.

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The very last image is of Lincoln's dream come true as he and Jordan sail away near some beautiful tropical island on the ship he saw at Tom Lincoln's apartment and his own memory.

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